Hand On String - Michael Andrews Album Review

Photo by:Autumn Dewild

Album Review

Going from film score writer to solo artist is always fraught with imponderables. And it's happened here. This is a musos album for certain, as there's little commercial appeal. Michael Andrews is best known for cover of Tears For Fears' Mad World (from flick Donnie Darko) with friend Gary Jules, which was a massive number one hit at Christmas 2003.

This Los Angeles based musician and film score composer finally breaks out on his solo debut. This superbly produced release still retains a score feel, perfectly exampled on the sequences of instrumental opener Something Already Happened. Despite his efforts to escape his film methodology, each song still sounds like a snapshot of various scenes; similar to Badly Drawn Boy's About A Boy. Oddly enough, some tracks like Orange Meet Lemon could be Damien Gough's work, though the repertoire, in places, has a more experimental touch like Sweeping, Cleaning and Organizing. Sometimes the songs are clean and simple such as the floaty excursion on the title track, led by acoustic guitar and hushed vocals, which is where Andrews keeps the singing template throughout.

Hello Lemon and Just A Thought could well be Jack Johnson, MOR soft-folk, or surf-folk which fits the demographic bill, considering his location. There's a strong element of 60s hippieness floating about in the former.

He also drifts into spacey wanderings dropped into Tracings, and they occur again on the snail paced wandering of See Me Plain. A reprise of Something...., with vocal drop-ins seems almost pointless.

Commercial winner? Never. Excellent listening album though.

Elly Roberts